Comic Book Creator - #8 by PressPad

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No. 8, Spring 2015

A Tw o M o r r o w s P u b l i c a t i o n

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also: HARVEY KURTZMAN • VERNON GRANT • BATTON LASH • STAN LEE • RUTU MODAN

S p r i n g 2 0 1 5 • Vo i c e o f t h e C o m i c s M e d i u m • N u m b e r 8

About Our Cover

Art by MIKE ALLRED & BOB BURDEN Color by LAURA ALLRED

Comics Chatter Rutu Modan: Michael Aushenker talks with the Israeli graphic novelist who gets to the characters inside of events in her books, Exit Wounds and The Property............... 3 Incoming: Phew! Some thought Swampmen was worth the wait… thankfully!........... 8 Vernon Grant: Where we discover the art of a neglected graphic novel pioneer......... 12 Stan Lee: CBC covers the Man’s final European comic convention appearance............ 16 The Good Stuff: George Khoury on the seductive art of Ilya Kuvshinov........................ 18 Hembeck’s Dateline: Fred looks at the heroes of the Justice Society of America...... 21 Harvey Kurtzman: Bill Schelly is interviewed about his new — and exhaustive! — biography of the creator of MAD (and bona fide comic book genius).............................. 22 Batton Lash: Part two of our interview with the creator of Supernatural Law............. 28 THE MAIN EVENTS

Boy, just like so much appearing in Comic Book Creator these days, this issue is a long time in coming! But while the cover was completed by the wonky hero team of Michael D. Allred and Bob Burden more than a decade back, take solace in knowing the interviews herein this double-feature issue are brand-spankin’-new! Our profound thanks to Mike & B.B. for their patience and support — and to Laura Allred for her great coloring job, as well! Cowabunga, surfer dudes!— Ye Ed. If you’re viewing a Digital Edition of this publication,

PLEASE READ THIS: This is copyrighted material, NOT intended for downloading anywhere except our website or Apps. If you downloaded it from another website or torrent, go ahead and read it, and if you decide to keep it, DO THE RIGHT THING and buy a legal download, or a printed copy. Otherwise, DELETE IT FROM YOUR DEVICE and DO NOT SHARE IT WITH FRIENDS OR POST IT ANYWHERE. If you enjoy our publications enough to download them, please pay for them so we can keep producing ones like this. Our digital editions should ONLY be downloaded within our Apps and at

Michael Allred’s Pop Art Life: Sure, the artist has toiled for decades and has rightfully earned his status as comic book great, but what charges his engine more than fame and glory? A passion for pop culture and love of family................ 44 The Zen of Bob Burden: Flaming Carrot has the distinction of being one of the oddest oddballs in comics and his creator is a character unto himself, as learned in this smart, funny, fast-moving and comprehensive interview............ 62 BACK MATTER Creator’s Creators: Kendall Whitehouse....................................................................... 79 Coming Attractions: Joe Staton.................................................................................... 79 A Picture Is Worth A Thousand Words: The Carrot gets wild with Pussy Riot!......... 80 Right: The Flaming Carrot and background items are from an image provided by Bob Burden and the Madman figure is from Michael Allred’s cover for The Superman/Madman Hullabaloo! #1 [June 1997].

Comic Book Artist Vol. 1 & 2 are now available as digital downloads from twomorrows.com!

www.twomorrows.com

Comic Book Creator is a proud joint production of Jon B. Cooke/TwoMorrows

Comic Book Creator ™ is published quarterly by TwoMorrows Publishing, 10407 Bedfordtown Dr., Raleigh, NC 27614 USA. Phone: (919) 449-0344. Jon B. Cooke, editor. John Morrow, publisher. Comic Book Creator editorial offices: P.O. Box 204, West Kingston, RI 02892 USA. E-mail: jonbcooke@aol.com. Send subscription funds to TwoMorrows, NOT to the editorial offices. Four-issue subscriptions: $40 US, $54 Canada, $60 elsewhere. All characters are © their respective copyright owners. All material © their creators unless otherwise noted. All editorial matter ©2015 Jon B. Cooke/TwoMorrows. Comic Book Creator is a TM of Jon B. Cooke/TwoMorrows. ISSN 2330-2437. Printed in China. FIRST PRINTING.

an icon’s final jaunt

The Man’s Last Pond Hop Marvel maestro Stan Lee makes his final European comic convention appearance by Robert Menzies Below: Stan Lee having a ball at the London Film and Comic Con last July, his professed final European con. Photo by Chris Gaskin. Next page bottom: Stan Lee in 1965, from the inside front cover of Fantasy Masterpieces #1 [Feb. ’66].

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Last summer, after decades of globe-trotting as Marvel’s greatest promoter, the man they call The Man retired his passport. Sunday, July 13, 2014, was the final day of the last European convention that Stan Lee will ever attend and Comic Book Creator was there to record the historic day. The London Film and Comic Con 2014 (LFCC), flagship event for serial con organizers Showmasters, was the scene for Stan’s last hurrah. The convention location was the imposing Earls Court Convention Centre and alongside Stan would appear over 100 film and media guests, 60 writers, and 100 comic creators, as well as a vast marketplace of sellers. It was going to be a summary and a celebration of popular culture in 2014, headlined by perhaps the greatest pop culture figure alive. Predictably, ticket demand was extraordinarily high, as was media interest, although it soon became apparent that no one had anticipated just how high. One film crew had flown in from football-obsessed Brazil, ignoring the World Cup Final that had its showpiece final in Rio de Janeiro on Stan’s final day. The crowds outside snaked around the halls and beyond. There were enough cosplayers to assemble every incarnation of the Avengers and enough agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. to crew a helicarrier, with a re-enactment of Secret Wars thrown in to pass the time while waiting in line. Stan’s itinerary included a press conference on the Friday, photo shoots with fans on all three days, signing sessions (with fans on Friday, Saturday and Sunday and private sessions with signature authenticators CGC on Thursday and Sunday), a Saturday Meet and Greet and a Sunday panel. It was a merciless — and frankly unrealistic — schedule and, as his assistant Mike said,

would have taxed a man a quarter of Stan’s 91 years. Stan had flown into the U.K. on the Thursday morning, July 10, so that before the con started he could film his cameo for Avengers: Age of Ultron, due to be released this month. (As an aside, during the Saturday “Meet and Greet,” Stan’s unreliable memory struck again. He claimed to have no idea who Ultron was, and mistakenly stated that the character came after he had ended his day-to-day involvement at Marvel’s New York offices. Ultron, of course, made his first named appearance in The Avengers #55 [Aug. 1968], in a tale that Stan edited and written by Roy Thomas.) Interestingly, Joan Lee, Stan’s wife, was born in Newcastle, in the north of England, and still has relatives in the Whitley Bay area. If this was to be Stan’s last trip, it would probably be hers as well. Sadly, Joan’s health was not good enough for her to travel. Sunday, the last day of Stan’s last European convention, started for Stan with a signing session. Fans had spent months agonizing over what to have signed; from listening to them, it was hard to escape the conclusion that many had given less thought to naming their children. Drained by the hectic two days he’d just had, Stan arrived later than planned. Regardless, it always appears as if Stan has been covered with protective plastic sheeting until revealed to the public as he was immaculately groomed, with freshly pressed white shirt and khaki colored smart trousers. It was only later that I noticed he was wearing odd socks: one white, one cream-colored. If you saw Stan over the weekend, you also saw Max Anderson, as the Pow! (Purveyors of Wonder) Entertainment event coordinator is never far from Stan’s side. One surprising fact connecting the men, and one that reveals they are close friends as well as business partners, is that Stan taught Max to drive. Stan is known to drive with — how can I phrase this delicately? — undue haste and seems a rather poor, even reckless, choice of instructor. Privately on Sunday night he summed up one of his core driving principles in this way: “If somebody overtakes me, I’ve failed!” Max’s uniform on Sunday was a salmon-colored Marvel print T-shirt, jeans and loud lime green trainers that play against his understated personality. Although quite laconic, he’s easy-going, friendly and helpful. Around Stan he’s a restless presence, pacing back and forth, shifting his weight from foot to foot, tapping his fingers on the wall behind him and directing Stan’s entourage. Throughout the day, and always unprompted, he’d approach Stan with a cup of water or a Smoothie. At one point during the Sunday signing, Stan reached down for something on the floor, causing his chair to tilt back slightly. With a speed reminiscent of Spider-Man whisking a pedestrian out of the way of a speeding bus, Max dived forward. Stan, however, righted the chair himself and continued signing autographs, oblivious to what had happened behind him. In an effort to satisfy the massive demand, Stan only signs autographs and will not add testimonials – not even a “To Robert”, darn it. He will sign anything in front of him, and the variety of objects is astonishing: comicbooks, prints, posters, toys, bobbleheads (of Stan!), scraps of paper, canvasses, replica weapons and costumes, musical instruments, statues, books, photographs, even body parts.

the good stuff

Ilya Kuvshinov The seductive, alluring artwork of an emerging comics master by George khoury CBC Contributing Editor

Popular culture is the common language that we all share. When it hits all the right notes, it has the power to convey ideas that bring us all together from anywhere around the globe. No matter who we are, what we have, or where we came from, it belongs to all of us. And via the savvy use of pop culture in his illustrations, Ilya Kuvshinov has found a path to our hearts as art lovers. “Pop culture has an enormous influence on young minds now, and I am not an exception,” says the 24-year-old Russian artist. “I think the future of a whole new generation of people depends on it, so you can’t underestimate it.” The captivating art of Kuvshinov engages the attention of everyone who encounters it. His choice of subjects display a touch of class and maturity beyond the years of its creator. And, thanks to social media and his openness, this up-and-coming illustrator has amassed a massive audience who follow his creative progress and insightful tutorials. Still growing as an artist, every bit of digital feedback and criticism that comes his way only motives him to carry on with his personal ambitions. “The importance of social media is huge,” says Kuvshinov. “Sometimes it’s the only thing that keeps me going.” Among his earliest influences are master artists Alphonse and Mikhail Vrubel, but his real passion ignited with his Japanese art heroes, particularly the works of Murata Renji, Katsuhiro Otomo, Satoshi Kon, and Hayao Miyazaki. American comics, too, have made an indelible impression. “It’s not hard to find a young man who isn’t influenced by Spider-Man, Batman, or the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. I love Jim Lee’s work. I’m a big fan of J. Scott Campbell, Adam Warren, Kim Jung Gi, Bryan Lee O’Malley, Sean Galloway, and many others. But the Japanese stuff is the Above: Caption bigger influence.” Comics are nothing new to this wunderkind. “We did comics every day!” enthuses Kuvshinov. “When our classes were dull, my friends and I drew comics together — you’d draw a panel of comic, and then hand it off to a friend and he’d draw another and just make sure that the teacher wouldn’t see it! It was fun because no one knew what was going to happen

next in the story — so the humor in it was pretty crazy.” Regarding his art training, “Academically, I started learning at age 11 at Moscow Art Lyceum,” he explains. “After it, I attended an animation college and an architecture academy, but everything I know about digital art started only three years ago when I began to work as a concept artist at game development. My visual storytelling skills started to develop only two years ago when I started directing motion comics.” The tools of the trade are a Cintiq Companion for his digital work and a mechanical pencil for sketching. In rare instances, he’ll also use acrylic on canvas. As a real renaissance man, his medium of choice is always the one that best helps him tell a story. “Right now I’m making my oneshot comic, and, to be honest,” he confesses, “I really love the methods of storytelling in traditional printed comics —

Upper left: Detail of a lovely Audrey Hepburn portrait. Left: Evocative piece. Inset above: The young Russian artist himself. Right: Judge Anderson: Psi-Division #2 cover detail. Next page: Top left is Silent Hill: Downpour #3 variant cover. Top right is his piece “Trumpet Tower. Bottom is Rachel from the movie Blade Runner. All art by Illya Kuvshinov. 18

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Hey, look: It’s Harvey!

The Life of a MAD Man Bill Schelly talks about his forthcoming exhaustive biography of Harvey Kurtzman Interview conducted by JON B. COOKE CBC Editor [Bill Schelly, an early and active member of comic book fandom back in the 1960s, has written innumerable books on those bygone days of fanzines and Alley Awards, and has earned considerable cred as an associate editor of the long-running magazine Alter Ego. Importantly, the historian is producing outstanding biographies on comics legends, including Otto Binder, Joe Kubert, and now a massive tome to be published by Fantagraphics this spring on the life of inarguably one of the most important comic book creators of all, Harvey Kurtzman. The following took place this past winter via e-mail. — Ye Ed.]

MAD TM & © Entertaining Comics, Inc. Two-Fisted Tales William M. Gaines, Agent, Inc.

Comic Book Creator: What does MAD and specifically the MAD comics run mean to you, and why are they significant? Bill Schelly: First, Harvey Kurtzman’s work as the creator, editor, artist, designer, and writer of MAD, both as a comic book and then as a magazine, set the pattern for one of the greatest publishing success stories of the century. Second, during the early 1950s, a time of great social conformity in America, MAD satirized popular culture icons like Superman, then the consumerist lifestyle, and then even Senator Joseph McCarthy’s anti-communist witch hunts, which were happening at that time. MAD satirized attempts of do-gooders like Dr. Fredric Wertham who wanted to sanitize, if not destroy, comic books. Satire involves criticism, which is why it can be so controversial, yet Kurtzman had the ability to satirize and, at the same time, be very, very funny. In my opinion, the brilliance of his writing, and the finished art by Wally Wood, Jack Davis and Willy Elder, has never been matched in any other humor comics and magazines… except, maybe, Kurtzman’s Humbug. MAD is significant because it brought iconoclastic satire to every city, town and hamlet in the country, encouraging readers — most of them young — to question the status quo, and not just accept things the

way they were. I really believe MAD had a lot to do with the emergence of the counter-culture in the 1960s. CBC: Was Harvey Kurtzman a genius? Bill: Kurtzman was an innovator. There had never been a comic book like MAD when he invented it in 1952, or a magazine like MAD when he changed its format in 1955. There had never been a serious-minded, artfully produced war comic book like Two-Fisted Tales when he invented it in 1950. And later, there had never been a fully-painted comic strip like Little Annie Fanny when he and Willy Elder created it for Playboy in 1962. In my book, I quote philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer who said, “Talent hits a target that no one else can hit. Genius hits a target no one else can see.” Kurtzman was a genius. Full stop. CBC: Give us the background of Kurtzman’s early life, his family and so on, please. Bill: Kurtzman’s parents were both immigrants from Odessa, an important port city in Ukraine. Life wasn’t great for Jews in Odessa in 1920, so David and Edith were among the masses of Jewish people who came to America at this time. They had two children. Zachary was born in April 1923, Harvey in October 1924. They lived in a tenement apartment in Brooklyn. Harvey’s father died when he was four. Edith married Abraham Perkes about a year later. Harvey always considered Abe his father. That marriage occurred the same year as the Wall Street crash of 1929, when the country was plunged into what we now call the Great Depression, when a third of all adult males in the U.S. were unemployed. Fortunately, Abe was a

#8 • Spring 2015 • COMIC BOOK CREATOR

MAD TM & © Entertaining Comics, Inc.

brass engraver by trade, and was able to earn a living through those difficult years. By 1935, they were doing well enough that the Perkes-Kurtzman family could afford to move to the Bronx, which was a step up from the Brooklyn ghetto. Harvey had shown an aptitude for artwork and cartooning early on. Therefore, he was chosen to attend the High School of Music and Art, a special school for talented youths. That’s where he met many of his future collaborators, such as Willy Elder, Al Jaffee, John Severin, Al Feldstein, and a number of others. How’s that for a quick capsule summary? CBC: Not too shabby. To what do you ascertain were the earliest influences on Harvey? Bill: His mother, Edith, was the most important single influence in his early life. He once described her as a “nightmare of a nudge,” but a nudge is someone who doesn’t accept things as they are. Both she and Harvey’s stepfather Abraham were Communists, and read the Daily Worker. Edith used to say reading the Worker taught her how to “read between the lines” of the mainstream press. She inculcated in Harvey the penchant for reading between the lines. That is, looking for the reality behind the official version of events. Harvey rejected Communism, but picked up Edith’s questioning attitude, which was, after all, the essence of what became MAD. Also, his mother recognized and encouraged his talent, and arranged for him to take weekend courses at the Pratt Institute and the Brooklyn Museum when he was eight and nine years old. CBC: What surprises did you find in his overall life? Bill: There were so many. One was an FBI investigation of Kurtzman’s war comic books in 1952, to find out if EC and Kurtzman could be prosecuted for sedition under the Alien Registration Act. That law, commonly known as the Smith Act, made it a federal crime to advocate or teach the desirability of overthrowing the U.S. government, or to be a member of any organization that did the same. J. Edgar Hoover wanted to know if Kurtzman’s comics were detrimental to the morale of combat soldiers, or urged insubordination or refusal of duty of Army or Navy servicemen. Obviously, since E.C. continued to publish war comics for another couple of years, the FBI and the US Department of Justice decided that they weren’t in violation of the law, but it’s a fascinating shadow event in Kurtzman’s career. And it wasn’t the last time Kurtzman’s work came to the attention of Hoover. Another surprise was how hard Kurtzman worked to break into television in 1959. He created proposals for original TV programs, and sought a position on the writing staff of established shows such as The Steve Allen Show. He got very close to making it, but always something got in the way. He was actually hired as a writer for a major television show, but then the star had a heart attack just as Kurtzman was reporting for work on his first day, and all bets were off. Among Kurtzman’s papers, I found scripts, letters, pitches, and all kinds of interesting material about his attempts to get TV work. He spent quite a bit of his creative energy that year on such work, which ultimately didn’t pay off — but some of his ideas were excellent. He was able to interest some people in his work, but never could “close the deal.” CBC: How do you assess the relationship between Harvey and Bill Gaines? Was Harvey treated fairly? Did Gaines make a fair deal and was Harvey’s insistence on 51% ownership of MAD unrealistic? Bill: Those are questions that have complex answers. It took me the better part of two chapters in the book to fully lay out all the factors involved. Was Harvey treated fairly? Comic Book Creator • Spring 2015 • #8

Well, do you consider work-for-hire fair? Yes, Gaines provided the financial capital to publish MAD, but Kurtzman poured every bit of his creative capital into the publication. When sales of MAD took off, Kurtzman’s salary went up a bit, but nothing in comparison to the huge profits the comic book and magazine were making for Gaines. Yes, Kurtzman accepted the work-for-hire system when he first got into comics, and when he started at E.C. But Kurtzman was a freelance editor, writer and artist. As such, his financial arrangements were subject to renegotiation at any time, either by Gaines or by Kurtzman. In fact, Gaines actually agreed to give him 25% of the profits in the MAD paperbacks, and 10% of the profits in MAD magazine. But Kurtzman never saw any of that money, because, not long after, in April 1956, he suddenly demanded 51% of MAD. At that point, Gaines fired him. As for the reasons why Kurtzman made such an apparently outrageous demand, there’s disagreement. He said he asked for it so that he would have the editorial power to pay more for freelance writers, because there was no way he could write the whole magazine. Gaines would only pay $25 a page, which was what Kurtzman called “a schlock rate.” But was Kurtzman simply after editorial control, or was he after ownership of MAD? Or was he trying to get fired, to salve his conscience because he had already decided to leave MAD to work for Hugh Hefner? These are some of the things I sort through in the book. When I was interviewing Hugh Hefner, he

Top: Harvey Kurtzman’s elaborate and ornate MAD logo from the first issues of the magazine version. Inset left: Harvey Kurtzman as lensed by E.B. Boatner, likely in the mid- to late ’70s. Above: MAD #20, perhaps the most subversive cover of all, allowing readers to sneak it into classrooms. Below: First appearance of Alfred E. Neuman, at least on a MAD back cover!

go west, young man

Of Torts and Terrors

The conclusion of the CBC interview with the cartoonist creator of Supernatural Law Conducted by JON B. COOKE CBC Editor [Last ish, cartoonist Batton Lash, creator of Supernatural Law, discussed his early years as Ditko aficionado and attendance with John Holstrom at the School of Visual Arts, in New York City, where they were students of comic book giants Harvey Kurtzman and Will Eisner. Though the legends took young Lash under their wing, it was suggested to the neophyte artist that maybe the field of comics wasn’t the right choice, leaving our subject to ponder his future. The following interview was conducted in mid-January and transcribed by Steven “Flash” Thompson (who actually is mentioned herein as an able assist in a time of need for Batton!) — Y.E.]

Above: Batton Lash’s signature characters, Wolff & Byrd. Right: Lash doing the networking thang at a comic con in a pic by his wife, Jackie Estrada.

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Comic Book Creator: Last we left it, Batton, you’re getting out of the SVA, it’s the mid-’70s, and what are you gonna do? Batton Lash: I was at a turning point. That summer of 1974 was an interesting one. I decided that I wasn’t going to be a cartoonist, that I probably wasn‘t cut out for it, but I still really liked comics and liked the form. I was still in the middle of my tenure at SVA, so I was looking more towards video, film, and writing to express my creative urges. Interestingly, that summer, I just weaned myself off of comics. Usually every Tuesday I would go down to the newsstand and see what came out, but one Tuesday I woke up and there was no urge. I just quit was cold turkey. Broke the comic mold. I just had no interest in it anymore. The Marvel and DC stuff at the time just wasn’t too interesting to me. I don’t know if it was the product itself or I finally just outgrew it, but I turned my back on it. So that’s where my knowledge of Marvel and DC comics ends: 1974. When people ask me, “What do you think of Deadpool?” I don’t know what they’re talking about! However, the only comic I would seek out was The Spirit, which Warren was reprinting. That summer, without the pressure and stress of Eisner’s class every week, I was able to just sit down and look at The Spirit. What made it work? What was the storytelling? How did he approach

the story? So I was interested in comics, but my gut feeling was, “I’m never gonna enter this field.” But I just loved The Spirit and the different situations that Eisner was able to put this character in. It was just incredible how flexible the premise was that he could do any type of story with it. Anyway, that’s the summer of ’74. Also, one more footnote about Eisner: he liked John Holstrom and me. I can’t remember the circumstances, but in July or August, we went to his studio on Park Avenue South to help clean up. I think he wanted some of the students just to help him move stuff around. And while there, he gave me a copy of Graphic Story Magazine, which had this cover story and interview with an artist I had never heard of, Howard Nostrand. I was fascinated with it! My first thought was this was an elaborate hoax, that someone created this golden age artist and this is what his stories would have looked like. But after I read that interview, I saw that Nostrand was, indeed, the real deal. His impression of Eisner and Kurtzman, and how he appropriated the best qualities of their work without swiping was fascinating to me. And also, another comics history footnote, Eisner, just in passing, said, “Oh, I just got this very ambitious project. An old-time artist named Jack Katz who I don’t remember meeting, but he sent me this… This is the first book in his series of graphic novels he wants to do.” It was The First Kingdom. “He wants a quote from me.” That was the first time I’d ever heard of Jack Katz and his ambitious goal to publish this wide-ranging, rambling graphic novel. So that was interesting. I’d see Will in SVA, of course. I was always there every so often to say hello, but I had moved on to cartooning and comics and started going into more playwriting and video productions. For a term project, I did the musical version of Night of the Living Dead. [Jon laughs] That was fun to do and being the director. I just thought that was fun. When I say musical version, it was sort of the MAD magazine version where it would take pop songs or classical songs and just fill in new lyrics to it. You know, “As sung to the tune of Yankee Doodle.” Something like that. It was fun to just drag people out of the student lounge and just put them in zombie makeup. Someday I have to convert that videotape to DVD because I haven’t seen it in years. Maybe I’ll put it up on YouTube one of these days. CBC: Did you graduate SVA? Batton: Yes. I graduated in 1977. That was another turning point. What to do? Because I was interested in playwriting and theater. I was particularly taken with Charles Ludlam and Ridiculous Theater, down in Greenwich Village. I liked that whole idea that you can rent out a whole space and have your stock company and every couple of months premiere a play that you wrote and you could perform in. You’ve gotta remember I was very young and very naive then, and I thought that was just something I would like to do. CBC: Now, did you attend a lot of theater? Batton: Yes. Off-Broadway and Broadway. At the time, New York was in a very bad fiscal state. Anyway, the plays could get you into the theater, they would do it. So ticket prices weren’t as expensive as you might think. There was great bargains to be had on the Great White Way. I discovered George S. Kaufman and Moss Hart, and there were a lot of revivals of those plays. Room Service… I liked the older

Radioactive Man & Bartman TM & © Bongo Entertainment. Supernatural Law TM & © Batton Lash.

plays the best! They were very funny, very antic. The actors that were performing them really nailed it, I thought. So I went to a lot of stuff like that. The trouble with theater is the same trouble with film: there’s just too many people involved. And that was always difficult, getting all the people on the same page — especially getting everyone on the same non-paying page as well. CBC: What happened with your theatrical ambitions? Batton: Well, I tried writing a couple of screenplays. I went out to California. I had relatives and had friends who moved out there. This would be the road that would become very familiar with me. I was very excited that there was actual interest in this screenplay I wrote. Of course, I get out there and it was just lots and lots of talk and lots of meetings. I must have been 21 years old. What did I know? I just thought this was protocol. Instead it’s just mammoth wasting of time. I mean, everyone’s interested and everyone can take a meeting, but that doesn’t mean they had any juice to get anything made. CBC: What was the screenplay? Batton: I tried to get this off the ground and had some interest. It was called Bartholdi’s Masterpiece and it was about a group of thieves that stole the Statue of Liberty and hid it in Hoboken! CBC: [Laughs] Okay, Batton: How’d they do that? Batton: Piecemeal, of course! I’ve got 10 drafts if you ever wanna read it! CBC: A caper comedy? Batton: Oh, it was definitely a caper comedy. In fact, it was an over-the-top caper. One of my favorite authors was Donald Westlake and I liked The Hot Rock, a caper movie and I just thought I wanted to take the caper one step beyond. Go very brazen and take the Statue of Liberty! Of course, I would never want to do something like that now because just the symbolism of destroying the Statue of Liberty is just something I would never want to perpetuate. It was never optioned for money. It was always, you know, “I’ll show it around.” At the time, I had no idea what options were. It was very low rent producers that — I’m taking their word for it — showed it around. I’d been to some offices, I remember some poolside meetings. I can’t say it’s a waste of time because everything is an education, but it prepared me for what was gonna come later when Hollywood was interested in Supernatural Law. CBC: How long did you stay out in California? Batton: I had several trips out there. Like I said, I had relatives and I had a friend out there who I stayed with so it was like a few weeks at a time. I think the longest I was out there was six weeks. But eventually, you’ve gotta come back to Brooklyn! Gotta pay the rent! What am I gonna do? I can’t wait for these schnooks to make a motion picture out of my screenplay — a screenplay by someone who had absolutely no credits to his name. So I had to do something. I put together a portfolio. I should add even though I thought cartooning wasn’t for me, when I would do my videos in SVA, I would draw the storyboards and the costume designs and what the characters should look like. A fellow student who became a very close friend — I’m still friends with him — Russell Calabrese, was in one of my videos. He looked at my sketches and said, “Are you doing comic books?” I said, “Naw. No, no.” He goes, “Why not? This stuff’s terrific!” I was shocked! For two years, no one ever said my work was any good at all and I go, “Really?” He says, “Yeah! Why are you doing this? You should be drawing comics!” So that was quite encouraging and all through the years, Russell’s always been a very big supporter. I was always indebted to him for that encouragement! It really gave me that shot in the arm that when I came back to Brooklyn, put together a portfolio, and thought, “Well, if Russell likes it, someone else has to Comic Book Creator • Spring 2015 • #8

like it out there so maybe I can get a few gigs just drawing. At the time — this would be the late ’70s — there was still a market for local weeklies. Even though people used clip art, a lot of places wanted commissioned art, whether they were drawings for advertisements or little editorial spots. So I thought I could pick up some money doing that. I hauled my portfolio around to different places. At night, I’d go home and either work on a new screenplay or work on a play, but my dreams of theater were fading because it was increasingly difficult to crack that market. CBC: Did you return to buying comics at all? You had caught wind of The First Kingdom. Wendy and Richard Pini were coming out with Elf Quest, Cerebus was coming out. There was a real beginning of possibilities! Batton: I didn’t learn of any of that stuff ’til the early ’80s. There were still enough head shops around that sold undergrounds, but I really wasn’t interested. I had a friend who worked in a second-hand bookstore in Brooklyn that was called My Friend’s Comics. That bookstore is the subject to an article all to itself. I found out how many comics people got their back issue there when they were fans! Everyone from Howard Chaykin to Jimmy Palmiotti to Paul Levitz. When I was a rabid fan, I used to go there. They would have a box and you could get back issues and they were incredibly cheap. The current stuff was incredibly cheap, also. But I had a friend who, just by coincidence, began working there, and when The Spirit would come in she’d pick it up for me. They got in John Benson’s Panels. She gave me a copy and said, “I thought you’d be interested.” Well, I thought it was just terrific because it was dealing with comics theory which reminded me of Howard Nostrand’s interview and, before that, Gil Kane’s Alter Ego interview. It was just fascinating and I said, you know, comics are just such a fantastic medium and you can do anything in comics. And I thought there’s got to be an outlet somewhere for this, “I still like comics and I’m drawing anyway. Maybe I should just find different markets. Why do I have to go through Marvel and DC?” At the time, if you weren’t doing Marvel or DC, the best you could do after that was Gold Key or Charlton or stuff

Above: Once titled Wolff & Byrd: Counselors of the Macabre Law, Batton Lash renamed the series Supernatural Law at the behest of Hollywood producers pitching a cinematic adaptation, which alas hasn’t yet come to be. Below: Nifty Radioactive Man and Bartman image shared by Bill Morrison, which actually predates Batton’s scripting on the character.

humor. You’d have these Sergio Aragonés drawings running down the sides of the magazine. My favorites were the movie satires. I remember having the Planet of the Apes issue which had Alfred E. Neuman on the cover looking ape-ish. [Jon laughs] I still have the MAD magazine with the Batman TV show satire inside. Also, it was the first time I ever heard of Clockwork Orange [laughter]. When I was a little kid, I’m reading about Clockwork Orange and was fascinated with this movie. And I was probably 20 the first time I saw A Clockwork Orange! But for years I had always been fascinated with it! The poster was just pretty iconic and strange and mysterious. I was just very curious about it and so when I saw it… It remains one of the most powerful viewing experiences of my life but my first introduction to it was in Mad magazine.

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Comic Book Creator: Where do you come from, Michael? Michael Allred: I was born in Roseburg, Oregon. It’s about an hour south of Eugene, where we live now. Laura’s from Orange, California. CBC: I read some interviews and was surprised to read perhaps that you were a rebellious kid? Michael: Not a rebellious child; a rebellious adolescent. CBC: How was your childhood, then? Michael: My childhood was about as perfect and ideal as you can imagine. Very Leave It to Beaver-ish. My older brother, Lee, was the Wally to my Beav. [laughs] Then, when I was about four, my younger brother, Curtis, was born. I was about 11 when my parents split up and then shortly after my parents remarrying, puberty struck, and I turned into a monster. CBC: [Laughs] Did comics come into play early on in your childhood? Michael: Always! They were always there. My older brother had the greatest taste. Probably the single most important thing in my life as far as my interests and what spurred any talent (or anything positive artistically) occurred because of my older brother’s taste in comics and what always surrounded me my entire childhood. So all the best stuff was always there and my parents were really great about keeping us supplied with pencils, paper, and paints, so we were always encouraged to be artistic. CBC: Were you exposed to MAD magazine and the humor stuff coming out as well? Michael: Absolutely! Yes, it was always there. I have countless memories of going on trips to Cabot Creek, which was our swimming hole, where you could… You know, all these rocks and waterfalls where you could actually sit under the waterfall and watch it flow over you because of the air pockets, and jump off cliffs into the water. It was about a 30–40 minute drive so we would always be given stuff to read and MAD magazine, for some reason, seemed to be one of the more popular things that we would have on these little driving trips. You’d get these little bursts of

X-Statix TM & © Marvel Characters, Inc. iZombie TM & © Monkey Brain Inc. & Michael Allred. Batman TM & © DC Comics.

Michael Dalton Allred was born into pop culture. Nursed on cartoons and comic books, weaned on rock ’n’ roll and science-fiction movies, he has grown to become one of the true comic book greats. His effervescent style, emitting a charming, earnest joie de vivre, is at once instantly recognizable as his own and yet reminiscent of the giants who came before him. Simply put, Allred’s artwork is friendly and warm, whether depicting the antics of his Madman or the living dead terrors of iZombie. And the creator himself, loving husband to wife Laura (also his colorist of choice!) and dedicated family man, exudes an authentic friendly and warm nature (never mind generosity!) befitting the artist. The following interview with Michael was conducted by telephone over two sessions this past winter. — Jon B. Cooke

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CBC: I guess it’s important to point out younger people that it was very hard to get into an R-rated movie then and we didn’t have video at the time. The best exposure that we could get to forbidden movies was through the satire of MAD because they would satirize R movies quite often. I think Clockwork Orange was actually X-rated for a while. So you must have been quite young. You were born in ’62. Do you remember the first run of the Batman TV show? Michael: I have very hazy memories of its original run. I’m not even sure. My older brother, Lee, tells me that we’d watch the first episode of the week… I’m sure most people know it aired twice a week. You’d get the first installment and there’d be a cliffhanger and then you’d see the conclusion of that particular story on the second show. Apparently our parents watched something on the second night… CBC: [Laughs] Oh, no! Michael: … So we would always see Batman and Robin get into trouble and never see how they got out of it. That was a more frustrating experience for my brother. I don’t remember that so much. Me being younger, I remember the satisfaction of seeing it in the reruns where you’d watch it and then immediately see the conclusion. Although there was one particular episode where they got

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Madman, It Girl TM & © Michael Allred. Wonder Woman TM & © DC Comics. All others TM & © Marvel Characters, Inc.

Conducted by Jon B. Cooke • Transcribed by Steven Thompson • Photography by Kendall Whitehouse

Comic Book Creator • Spring 2015 • #8

chained into a pool — this dark dungeon-like pool with a gigantic clam in it — and Robin was starting to get eaten. At the end of the episode, you just saw the horror of his feet dangling out of the mouth of the clam. It was years and years and years before I ever saw the conclusion of that. [laughter] He was fine, but I can just imagine the trauma of my older brother because every week in its initial run, he was conscious and mature enough to be incredibly frustrated by not seeing the conclusions because my parents wanted to see something else. CBC: A lot of your work is joyful. It’s antic. I don’t know why I’m asking this question but maybe it could be so because reruns were really big when we were kids: Were the Monkees an influence on you at all? That crazy, moptop kind of Beatles joy? Michael: Again, you’re hitting on the most important things that I was exposed to in my life — and the most lasting! The British Invasion was huge for me. We had an older cousin, Robin, who came to live with us for a while and, again fortunately for me, she had… Just like Lee had this amazing taste in comic books, Robin had the greatest taste in music. That was just really huge to me. The Beatles remain the most important musical influence for me and everything I’m passionate about musically branches off from them. And again it’s mostly British. From the Beatles, you’d have the Who, Rolling Stones, the Kinks, and then the next groups to come in were Led Zeppelin or the glam rock with David Bowie and Mott the Hoople, Roxy Music. But as far as what we would get on a daily basis musically, it would be the Monkees! And they remain a huge favorite for me. I’m ready to get into it as far as how important they were musically, the quality of their music. I don’t think they get the credit they deserve as far as just how really good their stuff was. [laughs] Also my childhood was The Partridge Family and I could also argue how important their music was and culturally, their impact, how important it was. To a lesser degree than the Monkees as far as being songwriters and performers — especially performers since David Cassidy was really the only one who performed at all as far as the Partridge Family goes, but the Monkees were incredibly talented musicians and writers. You could go through their catalog and see some of the incredibly innovative stuff that they did and just don’t 45

This Page: Music is a very important component in Michael Allred’s life, whether as guitarist for his (shades of the Partridges!) family band, The Gear, or as an influence in his artwork, as witnessed by his ambitious Red Rocket 7 mini-series. Above is the cover of The Monkees [#13, July ’68]. Of the band, Michael says, “I don’t think they get the credit they deserve as far as just how really good their stuff was.” Below is a Madman pastiche of the David Bowie album cover for Alladin Sane [1973] for Michael’s Image series, #15 [Apr. 2009].

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get credit for. CBC: You named your own publishing company AAA Pop. Pop is big for you, yes? Michael: Yeah, it’s what drives my life. Other than friends and family, pop culture is what I get the most joy from. I like mixing it up. My entire life I always wanted to be a storyteller to some degree, either as a comic book artist or a filmmaker or a writer or a musician. Because of any success I’ve had in comic books, I’ve been able to do all of that. It’s what I’m most curious about. The only magazine I subscribe to is Entertainment Weekly. [laughter] I feel sorry for all the generations before us that weren’t able to have access to all the creativity that’s available to us. I’m very grateful to have lived in the time that I live. And to have lived without certain things growing up where, again, a band like the Beatles could make the impact that it did to pretty much the entire world because of the limitations of what was available. Nowadays, everything is available instantly with iPads and… You know, everything is just coming at you. To have the kind of impact that one musical entity had and the kind of influence that the Beatles had… because they influenced absolutely everything. Everything! Music, movies, fashion! I think the decade between 1965–75 is probably the most exciting and groundbreaking decade in pop culture in the entire history of mankind. During that ten-year span some of the most exciting things happened and we’re talking about even how it influenced behavior, the Civil Rights movement, and again, you just look at the fashions as opposed to the previous decade where all men had a certain kind of haircut. Then, after 1965, it was any kind of hairstyle, facial hairstyle, the anti-war movement. Look at Life magazine between 1965 and 1975. The photographs are just… the incredible changes that took place! It… It’s mindboggling! Using the Beatles as an example of cultural change, just look at their appearance between the

years of 1965 and 1970. Just five years! Look how much they changed from month to month and then, culturally, the youth at the time. It’s just amazing. You listen to a band like Led Zeppelin in 1970 and imagine hearing that kind of music in 1960, for instance. Or 1965. Just how quickly things changed! The giant leaps that were happening. Here we are in 2015. You just go back 10 years to 2005 and not much has changed as far as music or film. There really hasn’t been that much groundbreaking art in the way of what was happening between 1965 and 1975. Just look how quickly film changed. Like Clockwork Orange again, using that as an example in film. The idea of that kind of movie being made in 1965 is unthinkable. CBC: Right. Michael: Very strict rating systems had to come into play, which didn’t exist before. The strongest thing you’re gonna see in that decade was probably going to be a Hammer horror film. Then more graphic violence became introduced and nudity and sexual content. So this is the decade that I’m born in and all of this stuff is just happening in the air around me. But, at the same time, because of the fact that there were only three TV channels in that decade mostly, that I’m exposed to. Only one radio station that we have any interest in listening to — you know, the one that’s gonna have your top 100 songs which, in that decade, would be primarily rock ’n’ roll. So, again, I have an appreciation for it because the world, through my eyes, came through… and then, of course, cable television was introduced. When I would come home from school, all of a sudden, instead of nothing being on TV, everything would be on TV! So, in one afternoon, I would be exposed to The Twilight Zone, Star Trek, The Monkees, Lost in Space, Land of the Giants, Batman, you know. The Saint — Roger Moore before he was James Bond — The Avengers. So this incredible rush of pop culture was available to me every day after I’d come home from school and then, on Saturday mornings, you’d get this incredible wealth of beautiful animation with the Looney Tunes, which was a huge impact on me. So I really appreciate how just the best stuff was available to me! And then there’d be this kind of garbage in the periphery. [laughs] But generally, for whatever reason, I was just fortunately exposed to just the best of everything! Then, what is it? All of a sudden, in the early ’80s, people could have a VCR and own movies! The video store boom kicked in and all of a sudden movies were… You didn’t have to wait for them to show up cut on television. Like, Wizard of Oz, for instance, is the classic example. Every year, if you weren’t sat down in front of the television to go to this incredibly magical world, you were gonna miss it! Even stuff like A Charlie Brown Christmas or Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer. They were these annual events that there was this incredible appreciation and excitement and anticipation for. I remember, when Planet of the Apes first showed up on television, it was an amazing thing to me, and, because of MAD magazine, I loved Planet of the Apes! The first time I saw Planet of the Apes was at a drive-in theater where there was… Conquest of the Planet of the Apes was the new film so the night before it premiered, the first three Planet of the Apes movies were at the drive-in — Planet of the Apes, Beneath the Planet of the Apes, and Escape From the Planet of the Apes. Pow! I got to see all three first films in one evening and then the next day was Conquest of the Planet of the Apes. So I was just huge into Planet of the Apes. To me, it

when you look at the original design of Madman, he kind of looks like a skeleton. I always intended to have the top of his mask open up so his hair could spill out. I always loved the Kid Flash costume. But I thought… you know, I’ve got a handful of people that like Grafik Muzik and Frank Einstein, For those dozen people, I’m gonna give them a thrill when I reveal that Frank Einstein is the man in the costume! So I did the full head mask. The stitching in his mouth kind of suggested teeth and a skull. There’s like a little crack in the forehead. That’s whey he has the black around his eyes. They were like skull eyes. The original costume had stripes on the side which suggested ribs. He was very skeletal. And because of my love and affection for Will Eisner, I thought, “Well, I’m gonna call him ‘The Spook.’” And so we made Spook T-shirts that had glow in the dark ink and man, we sold tons of Spook T-shirts! [laughs] So we’re at Wondercon and they have this display of The Spook T-shirts and I took what became my first cover, for the first issue of Madman. I made a faux copy of it, out it over another comic book and stuck it in a bag with a board behind it so it looked like a published comic book. I had like apiece of foam core that was cut out with Frank Einstein’s head on it wearing the T-shirt so if you can imagine! It was like a display on an easel with this foam core dummy wearing this T-shirt and in front of that was this bagged in board faux issue of The Spook! [Jon laughs] It was all intentional to show people, “Here’s what my next book’s going to be! So buy a glow-in-the-dark T-shirt!” Now what was really cool about this was exactly a year later at the next Wondercon, Tundra had picked it up and made these balsa wood gliders with Madman printed on the wing and Madman is, like, strapped to the wing of this balsa wood glider and Tundra was giving them away. So this was one of my favorite comic shows ever. It was so thrilling because you would be in the convention hall and you’d just see balsa wood going through [laughs]. You’d see balsa wood gliders flying overhead everywhere. They were just flying everywhere all the time! So within a year, pow! It hit. They promoted the heck out of it and it was this unexpected wonderful hit but it was at that Wondercon where we had The Spook. I met Greg Baisden and he introduced me to Kevin Eastman, who was just completely behind it. They gave me an incredibly generous page rate, and it was from Kevin that I really learned everything that I should expect as a creator like what my rights should be, what I should never accept from a contract, what I should expect from a contract. Kevin was invaluable and just being incredibly generous with the success he had with the Turtles and spilling it into this publishing entity where he was giving great chances to newcomers like me and Al Columbia and also some of his favorite artists like me and Bernie Wrightson, just saying, “Here’s a company where I know everybody has this project they’ve always wanted to do. Well, you can do it here!” So he would just kind of open his door to these established people with this incredibly generous contract, which, now in retrospect, is the contract you, as a creator of your own entities, should expect! So a lot of creators really learned how to go in to any

Previous & this page: Doubtless what brought Michael to the attention of the vast majority of readers was his delightful Madman, a charming and exquisitely drawn character that seems to have a perennial life, through multitudionous series, whether Madman Adventures, Madman Comics, Madman, Madman Atomic Comics, Madman Boogaloo, Madman King-Size Super Groovy Special, Madman All-New Giant-Size Super Ginchy Special, or, most recently, Madman In Your Face 3D Special. Certainly, too, an aspect that makes the series so endearing is Madman’s devotion to his freckled, wholesome girlfriend Joe, who (sans complexion) is based on Mike’s real-life wife of 30-plus years, Laura. Long live Frank Einstein!

CBC: Can you describe Frank Einstein when you originally created him? What made him your favorite? Michael: I didn’t realize it at the time but subconsciously it was the first character that I instilled my personality into, all of my insecurities. Like, I’ve never understood what Laura sees in me. [Jon laughs] Here she’s this beautiful, perfect, sweet woman with this giant heart and I felt like a creature! You know, some Hunchback of Notre Dame or Frankenstein’s creature… so with Frank Einstein all scarred up and beat-up and nasty looking, that was me on paper. And there was his girlfriend, Joe, and, with Frank Einstein, he can’t understand why Joe is kind to him and has affection for him. So, with Madman putting the costume on, you see those early issues and it’s like he then has this burst of self-esteem! He’s able to imagine himself as a hero and handsome and somebody special and worthy of Joe’s affection. That was kind of… me! With Laura being able to say, “You know what? You have this passion for the comic book art form. I’m going to do everything I can to help you where you only have to do this.” I could never understand that! Again, I didn’t realize that at the time but Madman was really a love letter to Laura and to this huge appreciation I have to her making these enormous efforts to me so I can do what I was exited about. So you can imagine how exciting it was to have something so personal become our first major success. CBC: Is Joe Laura? Michael: Yes, very much. Laura doesn’t have red hair or freckles, but when I’m writing Joe, I’m pretty much thinking: What would Laura say? What would Laura do? That sort of thing. CBC: Was it at Tundra first or was it in Grafik Muzik? Michael: Around the time that I came up with Madman — and, again, the idea of the world that Frank Einstein would exist in was every comic book that I loved as a kid. Anything could have happened. It could be a blood-&-guts and mud action sequence or an adventure story or an outer space adventure. Because these scientists who pretty much become the mentors for Frank Einstein, they can pretty much take him on any kind of adventure, place him on any kind of land or situation. So I had laid the groundwork for this all-encompassing comic book world for Frank Einstein to exist in which then also started or was cemented by my favorite place in the world, which is here in Oregon. So Snap City is very much a mix of Portland, Oregon, and Eugene, Oregon, but at the same time I would throw in elements of other great cities. You’d see a little bit of Paris or New York, like him on the Brooklyn Bridge or something. So Snap City became this amalgam or “Everycity,” but very much inspired by my affection for Eugene and Portland. So when Frank Einstein gave me the vehicle of a super-hero comic by just slapping a costume on him… It was really that simple. All of a sudden, I got this world that came together very quickly. Around that same time, we were planning on going to Wondercon, which was then in Oakland. One thing we had done to make ends meet… There’s this great company that would make custom T-shirts for us for not too much money, for a very reasonable price. So we would make T-shirts and when we went to comic book shows, it was just another way to make money because these were really cool T-shirts and we would make way more money selling T-shirts than we would selling our comics [laughs]. So I made a T-shirt for Madman. Now, at the time it was called The Spook. And

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Above: A ginchy Madman crossover occured when Frank Einstein teamed for a threeissue mini-series with the Man of Tomorrow in 1997’s The Superman/Madman Hullabaloo, published by Dark Horse. Below: In the ’aughts, Michael gave us The Atomics, featuring It Girl, who also had her own one-shot.

CBC: You think that was fortuitous? Is that a better name? Michael: Oh, yeah. And it’s funny because I don’t think anybody’s ever used The Spook, even though there was an intention to use the title, I don’t think anybody ever used it. CBC: Well, it potentially carries some baggage, right? Michael: Oh, yeah. A lot of times, when they would hear The Spook, there was some concern. You know, a racial slur. For me it was, like, let’s use the word the way it was intended. He’s like a ghostly character. Let’s win it back and let’s erase the negative connotations. It’s kind of hard, too, because, with Madman, “madman” has negative connotations and when you’re talking about somebody who’s literally a madman, it’s like an axe murderer or something and yet Frank Einstein is, in some ways, the most sane character in the entire series. But it mirrors my concerns of mental stability, which were inflicted on me by my father, the shrink, and my existential terrors. So, it was through Frank Einstein that I could spill all this and express all this. Even though there’s all these fun, goofy, colorful adventures taking place, there’s constant opportunities for introspection. Like, he’ll wonder if God really exists or where does the universe end or what is a soul. And this is where I could kind of exorcise demons and polish off my insane edges while on the surface giving somebody a comic book that’s just big fun! So it has all these levels in it, which has always been very satisfying to me. Again, going back to Love and Rockets and learning that there should be no rules. You can tell any kind of story you want and do anything you want. That’s what Madman has always been for me. So I’ve had all these wonderful collaborations that I’ve been able to be a part of but I’ve never felt frustrated because if there’s anything that I don’t feel that I’m able to do elsewhere, I always have Snap City and Madman and Frank Einstein. This is where I can go to do anything I want and tell any kind of story I want or express any idea, thought or feeling. It’s always been this outlet for me. I never felt like there was something left unspoken. CBC: Wasn’t there a time when Madman went over to Kitchen Sink? Michael: Denis stepped up and picked up the loose threads, shepherded some of the projects that were almost finished. I could have #8 • Spring 2015 • COMIC BOOK CREATOR

kind of business with any publisher and make sure they were gonna be treated fairly. That was huge for me! While this was all happening… Very shortly before going to press, Tundra had done a trademark search and somebody had filed an “Intent to Use” for The Spook. My favorite book at the time and, in fact, it has been my favorite book until recently, Catcher in the Rye, and Holden Caulfield constantly uses “madman” as an expression. Like, “he ran like a madman,” “he ate it like a madman.” It’s just “madman” this, “madman” that! So when I was told that I couldn’t use The Spook, we then scrambled for another title for the book and for about a week it was gonna be called The Goon. I even did a logo for it and did some mock-ups. Eric Powell knows this, too. In fact, I wrote an introduction to one of his collections and you’ll see Madman with The Goon and you’ll see the Goon logo that I created. But, thankfully, I was on a plane reading Catcher in the Rye and I was, like, “This is it! Madman! Madman!” So when we landed, I immediately called and said, “What about Madman?” And we were able to use it and Frank Einstein as Madman ever since.

Bob Burden, akin to his most beloved creation’s head, is a man on fire. Despite having been off the scoreboards for a few, long years now, he is still writing and creating all sorts of deranged, offbeat and charming artistic oddities, probably even as you read this. And even if you don’t “get it” or quite understand why any sane person would foist such a bizarre and outré character as Flaming Carrot on an unsuspecting public, it’s hard not to admire his American born-and-bred verve, initiative and salesmanship. But, dig, daddy-o: Burden ain’t no huckster square; rather the cool cat is cut from the same cloth as the Beats of another generation, only funnybooks and not poetry are his scene and Bob’s impact on the world of comics has been a crazy wild trip. This interview with the bang-tail gone cat is wide-ranging and involved and was conducted in two sessions, with the transcript copyedited by Mr. Burden. — JBC

onto each page, and that makes it hard for the artist. You know you wind up with 18 panels on one page. CBC: The writer/artists we talked about before, E. C. Segar, Carl Barks, and Will Eisner, are some of the best in the field. Bob: See if I’m going to draw something, spend time on it, I want it well-written. A bad story becomes an ordeal to draw. CBC: You’d rather be writing. Bob: I do have a special love for comic book art. As an art form. In my mind, it is not only a legitimate art form — just like oil painting or sculpture — but one of the most interesting and intriguing art forms there is. I used to deal comic book art. I can sit here and debate, evaluate, and criticize all the wonderful and fantastic comic book artists that we’ve been gifted within the last 50, 75 years of comic book history — but, for me, the racecar driver is the writer and the mechanic in the pit is the artist. CBC: Yeah, right. That’s not always been so, but people are, more and more, beginning to see it that way now. Bob: The fans all love artists. People always start out with what they see on the outside, without looking into the essence of a thing. Like actors were super-stars, but today a lot of people follow directors or screenwriters. I like to take time to see the essence — the subtleties. You know, the things you don’t see, but you feel, you hear, you taste. Or things that aren’t said, but are in the tone of somebody’s voice. While I was in the hospital back ten years ago, I noticed this thing about the way the medical people thought. You’d ask a nurse a question or a doctor or some medical person a question, they’d give you an answer, right there, right off the top of their head. Then they’d bunker it in with why it was true and sandbag it in with two or three reasons supporting their statement or their guess. So then you’d ask the same person the same question three days later, and they’d come up with a totally different answer, just like out of the Magic Eightball… and they’d bunker that in, and blah blah blah. See, it’s because they’re #8 • Spring 2015 • COMIC BOOK CREATOR

Comic Book Creator: Okay, Bob, a few warm up questions first. Bob Burden: Sure. CBC: Beatles or Elvis man? Bob: Sorry, the Doors. CBC: What would you do if you saw a monster? Bob: I’d kill it. CBC: Why have two cell phone numbers? Bob: It makes me feel more important. CBC: Is it true that you used to drive around with a human skull on the dashboard of your car out in San Diego or in L.A.? Was that a rumor? Bob: No rumor. I used to leave a skull on the dashboard of my rentals so no one would break into my car. Like for when I was in a bad area or something. You know, in Hollywood late at night. CBC: How would a skull keep someone out of your car? Bob: If you were a criminal, would you break in a car with a skull on the dashboard? Or would you just go on to another car? CBC: I guess, as Batman said, criminals are a superstitious and cowardly lot. Bob: And mostly none too bright. CBC: Let’s get down to business: Talk about being a writer and being an artist. What makes that different, Bob, than being just an artist? Bob: I’d rather write right now. There are so many other artists out there that are so much better than me. But I do enjoy drawing. Now a writer/artist, is often better at writing a story, pacing the story. A writer who doesn’t understand visual storytelling and pacing the panels tends to write too much

Co n d u cted by J on B . C o oke • Tra n sc r ibed by S tev e n T h omps o n trained that way — in school, they’re trained to grab the first thing that comes into their head, spit it out, and then defend it before somebody else raises their hand and comes up with an answer. They’re not trained to think. Well, I never followed that particular thought process. It’s a competitive kind of thought process. Now me, I like to take something and roll it around in my mind, roll it around like a pebble in my mouth, taste it, feel the shape, the texture. When confronting a problem or anomaly, I like to line up possibilities or theories — line them up there like pencils of different lengths, put ’em in order and basically look at all the different possibilities. CBC: Yeah, right. That’s not always been so, but people are, more and more, beginning to see it that way now. And this applies to your writing? Bob: If there’s some kind of engineering problem or a problem with a story, you don’t want to just grab the first thing that pops into your mind; you want to come up with all the different possibilities, lay ’em out, and pick out the very best one. Try each on for size, you know. CBC: Comics are really rather idiosyncratic in the way that they developed. I’ve seen written that you revel in the fact — perhaps. You can tell me if this is true or not: that comics really came from a trash medium and that they’re perhaps disposable or what…? Is that so? Bob: Not a trash medium, but it’s kind of a vulgar medium, and with that comes a certain amount of… how would you say? Lack of self-consciousness. The feeling that this comic story really doesn’t matter because it’s “just a comic book,” that’s what’s best about it. So you can write with a sans souci attitude. So you can go ahead and say whatever you want. If you’re making a movie, you’ve got six months or a year of your life tied up. Then there’s from 40 to 180 other people’s lives involved, from the key grip to the actor to the lighting guy. A lot on the line. So you tend be a lot more careful and meticulous, and when you do that, you lose the sort of flair and élan that is possible with comics. Now that being said, comics have become a more self-conscious medium. Now that people are taking themselves more seriously. CBC: To me, looking through Flaming Carrot, through stories that you’ve written and drawn, they’re… they’re not throwbacks necessarily to the very early comic books Comic Book Creator • Spring 2015 • #8

of the late ’30s and early ’40s but somehow Flaming Carrot captures the essence of, for lack of a better term, the je ne sais quoi, the certain something, where it is discovery. It’s storytelling unfettered. I guess I’m just making an observation, but that’s a sense that I feel within your stories, beyond the actual working within the construct of a comic book. Bob: Yes, it was great being there in the frontier period, the revolutionary period, before they fenced off the range. As Kafka says, “Every revolution degenerates into some form of bureaucracy later on.” I liked that early explosive energy that you had in the first stage of comics. There was a magic in that 1938–’41 period. You could really see it from the comic collector’s point of view. The best golden age comics, for collectors, are in 1939, ’40, and ’41. By ’42, it just all of a sudden became lame. And I was curious about this! Why did this happen? And you know, I mean, I was around back in the days when the people who made it all happen were still alive — Jack Kirby… I would talk to him about the early days of comics, and Gil Kane, and some of these other guys who used to go to conventions. From those discussions of the early days, I got the picture that before 1942, it was kind of the wild, wild West. By ’42, the mothers were chiming in, and the editors started saying, “You can’t do this, you can’t do that,” you know, this whole “Mommy-land” concept. The real early stuff was great, and it was kind of bloody, violent. Like some of the cable series today. Like Rome or Black Sails or Spartacus. The blood’s 63

CBC: As a young kid, reading Feiffer’s The Great Comic Book Heroes, which included his childhood handmade comics, was mind-blowing. It was, ‘Wow! I could do this, too!” I didn’t just have to be a reader, but also make my own comics. Bob: Everybody in early fandom read that Jules Feiffer book! It was in every library and it was just fantastic. It was a wonderful book. CBC: So where did the idea come in for you to do your own comic book? Bob: That’s a good question. I was talking about doing it with Iger in ’75 or ’76. I had a bunch of other stuff going on at the time that were different schemes, and it seems like every week we were up to something else. At one point in time, me and my roommate had decided to license all the Herschell Gordon Lewis movies, so we got a bank account and started putting some of our money into it just to get these things and buy ’em up because… Well, the funny thing is that neither of us had ever seen those movies at the time, but we just had this vision that someday they would be marketable. But they were so horrible! You had Blood Feast and 10,000 Maniacs. We’d heard so many stories about how horrible they were, we said, “These things are so bad, they’ve gotta be good!” So we were gonna license them! My friend Bob flew up to Chicago to talk to lawyers and the people up there and everything. And this is all before VCRs! You gotta remember, too, back in those days, all this is before cell phones, VCRs, and just so many things. It was a different world back then! How many channels were there on television before cable? In any major city you had NBC, CBS, and ABC, and only a few UHF stations. CBC: Right. So you were entrepreneurial. What’s the genesis of Flaming Carrot? Did that fit into an entrepreneurial scheme, or was that self-expression? Was that an offshoot of those homemade comics that the Crumb brothers were doing? I’m trying to see a connection, a pattern. Bob: Well, there were a number of factors involved. I had always wanted to do a comic book, but I didn’t think that I could actually do a really good serious comic book, so if you did something just goofy like Robert Crumb or Herbie… I hoped that readers would be a little more lenient with the quality of my artwork. CBC: [Laughs] You’re a force of personality enough that you could say, “Hey, maybe the quality reaches a certain level on this...” but you could sell it? Are your skills as salesman part of the equation? Bob: Well, there’s different times in the whole history of Flaming Carrot where I had to bring my business sense in and had to push it. Like, for instance, early on, when Flaming Carrot was beginning to launch into the regular series, I was at odds with the publishers a good bit simply because I wanted to do things my way, and they wanted to do things their way. I argued with publishers Comic Book Creator • Spring 2015 • #8

about print runs and paper quality. They’d say, “You never sell as much of a book later on as you do with a #1. The # 1 is always a bestseller.” I said, “No. That’s only true of a book that’s a failure. And why should you publish garbage? Why not just publish something that’s gonna be good?” Back then a book would dip at around #5–7. Good or bad. But if it was a good book, a hit, then it would start coming back up. Then, by #10, it would be double over what #1 was. CBC: Why didn’t you self-publish in the early years? Bob: I did. My roommate. Lamar put out a book called Visions. We had a Neal Adams cover. The idea was that a Neal Adams cover was sure to sell X-amount of copies. We had Jim Steranko in it, and Rudy Nebres on the back cover. It was sort of a fanzine and sort of a comic book, so it was able to sell through that Phil Seuling distribution network. You see, the distribution network has a lot to do with the product, sometimes as much as the artist does. Music changed when radio was invented. Certain things were possible once radio was invented that would never have been possible if radio hadn’t come along. CBC: Collateral effects? Bob: Yes, like with rock ’n’ roll — would it have ever even happened if it wasn’t for amphetamines? I mean, there would have been something musical there in that decade, but I don’t think it would have been as much fanaticism and energy if it wasn’t for all the bennies and uppers and downers that were floating around back then. CBC: Amphetamines among the performers, you mean? Bob: Yes. Everyone was on that stuff. Comedians, actors, songwriters… Take On the Road. It was written in a few days on one big roll of paper and I’ll bet Kerouac didn’t sleep a lot during the writing of it. You look at early television, look at those early kinescope things, and watch them talk. If you’ve been around people on speed, you know what you’re looking at. It was commonplace back then. It was a household thing. It was “Mother’s Little Helper.” 69

This page: The Mysterymen comic, turned into a 1999 feature film starring Ben Stiller and Bill Macy. Now considered visionary and ahead of its time, it has garnered a cult following, and the windfall gave Burden the freedom to create and write more madness. Artwork by BB.

They were prescribing this for everybody. They didn’t know how dangerous it was. It was like science was on the loose. I remember shoe stores X-raying your foot to determine what kind of shoe you should have. CBC: I can’t say that I truly understand your humor, but I find it funny and I don’t know if I necessarily need to understand it. Ernie Kovacs, for me, is the same way. Sometimes I don’t know why I laugh, but I do at those stupid monkeys. [laughs] Bob: Oh, you mean the monkeys with the derbies on? The Nairobi Trio? They were freaky. Scary. I don’t know what they were all about either. Just kind of disturbing. CBC: Right, but so much of what Kovacs did was within the medium itself — to really use the tools available to him in those early days of television and use the camera in such a way that it made it funny unto itself. Bob: Other things he did were not funny, but more of an artistic thing. He did some of the most bizarre little black-

outs… they’d come on and they’d just do some things. It was just plain weird. He was like a kid in a candystore. Just being creative and having fun, you know? CBC: Do you see a connection between you and that style sometimes, pushing the...? Bob: One of my earliest memories is sneaking into my Aunt Mary’s bedroom while she was watching TV, and peeking at the TV, where just something weird seemed to be going on and I wanted to see it. And it was an Ernie Kovacs show they were watching. I was sitting there watching and this singing Mountie comes along and he’s rowing in a boat with a girl in it and he’s serenading her — and as he does, the camera pulls back and you see this guy watching this on his TV set and he’s just sitting there kind of disgruntled and bored with it. He stands up and goes over and gets a drill, and he starts drilling into the top of the TV set and the people are screaming and the boat sinks — and it was just so cool that they broke this fourth or fifth or sixth wall, whatever it was. It was like a Don Martin cartoon! [Jon laughs] I just sat there and said, “That’s great! I want to do that!” When you’re a young teenager or young kid or whatever and you want to do something, you just play around with it. You mess around with it. I could have just as well picked up a guitar and got together with some buds and done something like that. It’s just goofin’ around and having fun. That’s where the magic comes from. That’s why I don’t really agree with all this modern educational system stuff. Learning how to use your tools and utensils is important, but not everyone is an artist. You can teach how to draw a little, and you can teach ’em how to format a script — but as far as teaching ’em how to do the magic? Either you’re born with it, I think, or you discover it and mature into it. Some people may just have it, and some people don’t. They used to say that every artist has 500 bad drawings in him, and he just has to draw and get them out. I disagree. I think some people

#8 • Spring 2015 • COMIC BOOK CREATOR

Right inset: At Forrest J Ackerman’’s fabled Ackermansion, Ackermansio Bob Burden is in awe before the “W Wall of V Virgil irgil Finlay Originals.” Originals 72

s 3 PR I NG s # /M IC C BOOK B C REA ATOR

Above: Even as a child, Bob was drawing, creating and envisioning a new comic universe for a yet-to-be direct market.

do that that easily. You know, you. By the later ’80s, some really big changes were taking place in comic books that perhaps culminated with Image. you’d need like $50–100 sn’’tt there? I mean, the grand and that won’t go very There was gold in them thar hills, wasn’ Batman movie was coming out, The Dark Knight Returns, far! Watchmen. These things were gaining notice, right? CBC: You went to school Bob: From the start, I was aiming at reach an audience in Athens, Georgia, where REM, the B-52s, and a lot of beyond comic book fans and the direct market with Flaming arrott. I knew there was an audience out there for the weird good bands came from. Was Was Carrot — I just had to find it. The Far Side did. SNL, Monty Python, Athens receptive to you as Kids in the Hall, Second City… an artist? Flaming Carrott was always meant to be something that Bob: I had my own little the average person could just sit down and read. Flaming group of odd and creative Carrot arrott did well with readers who were average people that people that I would hang just didn’t read comics. I would get that a lot. Also a lot of out with. It was sort of like female readers, too. Gumbyy was popular popu with women, too. a Jack Kerouac/William S. CBC: You wanted to get women readers? Girl readers? Burroughs/Neal Cassady Bob: I always aimed to make my books accessible to the kind of group of odd charaverage person — to produce the kind of story that went acters and friends. We had bizarre adventures and a lot beyond the Marvel and DC continuity so its audience wasn’t IF YOU ENJOYED THIS PREVIEW, all 14-year-old boys. Comic fans were very open minded, and of partying. It was just this CLICK THE LINK TO ORDER THIS they accepted Flaming Carrott.. They gave nice, abnormal existence. ISSUE IN PRINT OR DIGITAL FORMAT!g me a base. So I’m definitely not knocking the fans. Comic book people stepped CBC: Were you hanging with an avant-garde crowd? up big time. CBC: Were there thoughts to different modes of distribuOr a beat crowd? tion? Of getting it out there in front of those type of people Bob: Yeah, it was Bohewho wouldn’’tt typically go into comic stores? Or were you mian, avant-garde, creative people. These kind of people trapped in that...? tend to find each otherr.. They Bob: Yeah, there was thought of that. I had the idea of breaking Flaming Carrott stories down into half-page or onecreate a center of gravity page segments and putting it in college newspapers. There and 99 times out of 100, would be maybe five or ten panels between gags. I just nothing ever happens. They just go their merry ways and don’t know if they would’ve gone for it. I didn’t think doing ead d would work for the on to their normal lives. And single-gag things like Zippy the Pinhead ours did too, but for me, I just stories we had, broken down like that. But it was one of the ge out there and go far kind of held onto the oddball ideas I had. I also felt Gumbyy could get and wide. At one point, we were trying to break it down to thing and continued with it. where itBOOK wouldCREATOR be like a children’ s storybook, with text down CBC: In social circles with COMIC #8 creatorsbelow of Madman andthe Flaming Carrot—MIKE ALLRED & above that. and Rick Geary pictures people outside of comicThe BOB BURDEN—share a cover and provide comprehensive intergetSCHELLY it into isbookstores orhismusic stores or any other ToBILL books, did being a comicviews and artCBC: galore, plus interviewed about KURTZMAN biography; the conclusion outsideweofpresent regular channels? book creator have a kid new of HARVEYdistribution of our BATTON LASH interview; STAN LEE on his final European Bob: e wanted to getand it out social cachet? Was Was it cool? comic convention tour;W fan-favorite HEMBECK, more!into the regular bookstores. PeopleFULL-COLOR have toldmagazine) me that$8.95 Pandemonium um Boulevard d is someBob: Oh, it was reprehensi- (84-page (Digital Edition)go $3.95 could into a regular bookstore. Probably would ble! [Jon laughs] If you were thing that want a different cover and some tweaking. a comic book artist, people http://twomorrows.com/index.php?main_page=product_info&products_id=1150 CBC: You wouldn’’tt go with the Dave Stevens cover to the would look at you like you mass market. were criminal. Bob: That’s a pretty sexy coverr.. Comic Com fans know who CBC: Even the Bohemian Dave is, but maybe something less salacious for prime time crowd? bookstores. Bob: Yeah, back in those days, they looked down their CBC: How has that book been received? Bob: The book has a lot of memoirs and explanations; it nose at you! Even the artsy talks about creativity and all that kind of stuff. So it’s not your people. “Oh, you’re a comic average comic artist book. Some people don’t know what to book artist? Please! I don’t make of it, and others seem to get it. even know you! I forgot what you look like already.” They didn’t want anything to do with you. That’s why I would tell people I was in the movie business. And at times I was. At one point I was actually working with a retired producer named Ted Toddy. He made a lot of all-Black feature films back in the ’30s and ’40s. I was trying to get these old films out to a college audience like they had been doing with the Marx Brothers or W W. C. Fields. Or Reefer Madness. There was a market renting renting them them to tocolleges. colleges.Also AlsoII was writing screenplays. I wrote wrote aa screenplay screenplayback back in the ’70s for Sheena, Queen of the Jungle Jungle e because Jerry Iger said, “Hey write a Sheena screenplay. We can sell it!” And of of course, course, IIdidn’ didn’t have the vaguest idea of what I was was doing. doing. IIthink thinkIImay mayeven evenstill stillhave have a copy of the f*ckin’ screenplay around somewhere. CBC: You had the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles show up within your comic book, ok, and that did well for